1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the sport of water skiing and more particularly to an automatic system for raising a warning flag when a skier goes down.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The sport of water skiing is very popular and, as is widely known, it is carried out by a motorboat towing a person on water skis. A skier tow line is affixed to the stern of the boat and the skier grasps a handle on the free end of the two line so as to be towed across the surface of the water.
As in virtually all sporting activities, the sport of water skiing has certain dangerous aspects. Aside from the physical danger of falling, the skier is often subjected to the danger of injury by other boats in the vicinity. While there is a relatively samll likelihood of collision between another boat and a skier that is being towed, when the skier goes down, his visibility decreases drastically and the chances of his being run over by another boat are substantially increased.
Due to the ever increasing popularity of water sports in general, the lakes and waterways are becoming more congested and this results in greater hazzards to a downed water skier.
The problem relating to the safety of downed water skiers has long been recognized and water safety regulations have been enacted to alleviate this problem. Whenever a boat is towing a water skier, it is required that at least two (2) persons be in the boat, one to operate the boat and another to act as an observer. The observer's duty is to watch the skier and when he goes down, the observer raises a warning flag and notifies the boat's operator so that he can commence the operations required to pick up the downed skier. The warning flag is to be held up as long as the downed skier is in the water.
Several devices and systems, as will hereinafter be described, have been proposed to automatically accomplish the observers duties. But, by far the most commonly used technique is to rely solely on the observer. In many instances, observers are very conscientious and attentive to their duties. However, due to the relaxed nature, and partying that is sometimes associated with water activities, some observers are less attentive than they should be. Further, when an observer is holding the warning flap up, his usefullness in accomplishing other tasks, such as helping to pick up the downed skier, is negated.
As mentioned above, several prior art devices and systems have been suggested to facilitate the use of the warning flag when a water skier goes down.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,786,778; 4,090,468; and 4,122,796 all relate to flag raising mechanisms that are operated by the observer, or the boats operator, to raise and hold the warning flag in the up position when the skier goes down.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,798,631 discloses an alarm system whcih is automatically triggered to produce an audio and/or visual alarm when the skier goes down. When the alarm is produced, a warning flag must be places in a special socket to shut off the alarm.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,602,188; and 3,735,724 disclose systems for automatically raising the warning flag when the skier released his grip on the tow line.
While the foregoing prior art devices accomplish, in varying degrees, the purpose of the present invention, they fall short of being totally satisfactory, or desirable, in a number of respects. The manually operated devices of U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,786,778; 4,090,468; and 4,122,796, all rely on the attentiveness of the boat's observer, and thus are only as reliable as the observer. The semi-automatic prior art device of U.S. Pat. No. 3,798,631 and the fully automatic devices of U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,602,188 and 3,735,724, are relatively complex and costly mechanisms.
All of the above described prior art devices require that at least some of their structural elements, such as flag containing standards, pivot housings, and the like, be mounted on the deck or gunwales of the tow boat. Many boat owners are reluctant to mount anything on the deck or gunwales of their boats for aesthetic reasons. In many boating activities, both water skiing and otherwise, persons in the boat will often need to walk on the deck or crawl over the gunwales when getting into or out of a boat. Thus, any bostructions, such as the above mentioned hardware, that are mounted on the deck or gunwales can be safety hazzards. This, in conjunction with the aesthetics, costs and complexity of the prior art devices has kept many boat owners from utilizing such devices.
Therefore, a need exists for a new and improved safety flag device for use on boats that are employed inw ater skiing, with the device of the present invention overcoming some of the problems and shortcomings of the prior art.